Biggest Mistake MADE

[JamesDavid]

I thought it would be informative if some people wanted to share the biggest mistake they MADE. NOT the biggest mistake they didn't do. People wont learn from your mistake "I thought of facebook but never developed it".

What will be informative is if people just say a mistake they MADE.

I will go first..


I can say the biggest mistake I have MADE would be buying into the gTLD hype and registering 5 .asia domains.. I want to say that at the time I pre-ordered them they were like almost $200 a piece..

I secured 5... and let the 5 drop after the first 2 years...

It was a costly mistake as the $1000 could have been used elsewhere..

I will NEVER buy into the gTLD hype again..

 

[randomo]

My three biggest domain-related mistakes:

1. Reg'ing tons of worthless domains at high prices when I first start dabbling in this "business". (Lots of other newbies made - and still make - the same blunder, of course.)

2. I only ever owned one solid revenue domain - bought it at eBay for less than $5, and it immediately made about $15/day in PPC. But the keyword phrase was about a topic that I thought would only be hot briefly, so I sold it for a few months' revenue. Interest in that topic went on longer than I expected; I think the buyer made some nice $$!

3. Letting my wife talk me into getting our patio redone this winter. That cost so much that I had to offer some domains here at fire-sale prices to raise funds. (But she's still worth it.) :loveyou:

 

[John Baron]

Great thread idea. in my early domaining days i backorder 3 domain names in all the drop catching company's , snapnames got them , later on i understand they are really lousy and dropped them all .

after couple of months i got 3 emails from pool.com ... Congratulations! You have won domain(s)!
yeah - i did not clean my order in my pool account and they capture them when they dropped and i got them all back again ...

 

[UR-PC.com]

Great thread idea.

My biggest mistake was many, lol.

1. When I first got into buying domains in 1998 I regret not registering more high quality domains instead of buying a handful I felt had potential but back then I didn't know any better so I bought some decent domains and the rest were just crap.

2. In the 12 or so years I have been into this business I regret not being on top of the industry news and I let a lot of decent domains go because I didn't have the money to register them or I didn't care at the moment because I was busy with other stuff in my life.

3. I regret not spending more time developing my websites. <--- THIS IS MY BIGGEST MISTAKE!!!

4. Never taking advantage of PPC programs or parking my domains to at least make some money to justify registering them instead for many years I never tried to even park them and I lost huge amounts of money paying for them yearly out of my own pocket.

5. Not being apart of namepros.com until recently on a daily basis when I should have been a regular on this forum since the day it started.

6. Being to young and naive when I first got into this business and not being able to see what the trends where at the time to take advantage of them.

7. Passed on all the offers I have had on selling some domains because I felt they were worth more but probably should have sold a few that I had decent offers for.

I could go on all day long about regrets I have in this business but the mistakes I made are what make me a better person today. I feel I learned a lot in the 12 or so years I've been in this business and am learning every single day something new.

 

[seven]

.Mobi - This hype happened at the exact wrong time for me (just beginning) and I bought into some reg fees that cost me about $350. Most domains were dropped.

.WS - Made my own hype on this one. Regged a bunch of decent 1 worders but still almost all dropped. About $400-$500 here.

Late night registrations - Do yourself a favor. Unless you 100% without a doubt know the domain is awesome, wait until morning. I've registered names and then woke up wondering what the hell I was thinking.

Someone mentioned the Godaddy auto-renew. I haven't gotten burned by this except for maybe 1-2 domains at full renew but EVERYONE should be very careful with this - especially if your CC has a large limit. Godaddy auto-renew will claim a lot of victims so be careful. If anything, just use a CC with a limit of $500 to be extra careful.

Let some names drop I shouldn't have. Just didn't stop to think about why they could be valuable and they ended up being valuable. This will probably be at least a mid $x,xxx mistake.

Should have been more selective with my names.

Not thinking about domain names or at least starting a website in the late 90s. I was on the Internet back then and I should have realized the potential a lot sooner. Again, just wasn't thinking.

-------------

I'll go ahead and disagree with two things said to be mistakes.

One is .tv. .TV is actually being used by many people and has worked out well for video sites. If you have a name that fits the extension, it can still be valuable.

Second is sell a domain any time you get a good profit. There's a fine line here between maxing out a domain's value and selling it to fast. There are plenty examples of someone making a nice flip and then watching that flip look like chump change later on.

 

[Ms Domainer]

*

Biggest domaining mistake: buying into .tel

Biggest "life" mistake: at 18, I went to the police because my family was harassing me and trying to keep me from leaving the great state of Iowa.

Big mistake: I ended up in a mental institution for two months.

But I did leave Iowa, anyway.

*

 

[Rich]

-Not reinvesting the money from a sale on renewals or putting it to the side for a "great opportunity" this business can provide good deals when people are low on cash (just make sure you are'nt also)

I always look to reinvest...Failing to put money aside is one of my biggest mistakes as well, you always want to have some cash on hand because this industry is full of surprises, deals, new extension releases, etc.

 

[buywiser]

Buying domains at 1and1... (at least you learn! lol)

 

[gedhangbiru]

buying .tv domain....

 

[Kate]

Mistakes become experiences only if you learn from them.

 

[Coopey]

Accidently putting $360 in as a proxy bid for a domain instead of $160 and not realising until the NamePros Live Auction what I had done. This type of domain was selling $120-$150 at the time and thanks to domainer-domainer hype still increasing, so I thought "oh, go on then, I'll join in and have a go at a quick flip" thinking I could turn $160 into $250+ in a month if I won.

In the live auction it got bid up to $360, which was the highest the runner up could/would go.

It was an LLL...

.mobi


(I, of course, honoured the sale and paid within 12 hours of the auction end. I still have the domain. Apart from a defensive reg I took and then dropped, it's probably the only .mobi I'll ever own...)

 

[GoneWalkabout]

Biggest mistake was listening to naysayers and getting a little scared of the investments I made in .TV and TV.com names - Decisions I had originally made after a lot of research and thought.

I was so anxious I sold some of my best .TV names very cheaply and dropped a great many TV.coms it had taken me quite some time to collect.

Only later (when endusers started buying these names for many many times the price I had paid and more - and all the TV.coms I dropped had been picked up) did I realise I had thrown away a lot of good stuff in the mistaken belief that people who hadn't actually really studied the market at all were some kind of experts.

I now ignore naysayers as keenly as I do hype merchants.

Yes, in the wrong hands, and with the wrong attitude, every extension can be described, quite plausibly as crap/unprofitable/failing.

It is better to listen to endusers and your own sales/earnings about the strength of any market. The buyers money or lack of it tells no lies.



I also made the classic mistake of buying a hundred 'dull' names at reg fee each when I would have been better buying one truly great aftermarket name for the same amount.


A final mistake was leaving renewals until the last minute. Now I take advantage of any offers/coupons.


Another mistake - and one that not many will admit to, is spending too much time on Namepros and other domain forums!!!! (although it is now one of my most enjoyable guilty pleasures)

 

[Archangel]

A lot could be learned from reading this. Reps added for it

.Mobi - This hype happened at the exact wrong time for me (just beginning) and I bought into some reg fees that cost me about $350. Most domains were dropped.

.WS - Made my own hype on this one. Regged a bunch of decent 1 worders but still almost all dropped. About $400-$500 here.

Late night registrations - Do yourself a favor. Unless you 100% without a doubt know the domain is awesome, wait until morning. I've registered names and then woke up wondering what the hell I was thinking.

Someone mentioned the Godaddy auto-renew. I haven't gotten burned by this except for maybe 1-2 domains at full renew but EVERYONE should be very careful with this - especially if your CC has a large limit. Godaddy auto-renew will claim a lot of victims so be careful. If anything, just use a CC with a limit of $500 to be extra careful.

Let some names drop I shouldn't have. Just didn't stop to think about why they could be valuable and they ended up being valuable. This will probably be at least a mid $x,xxx mistake.

Should have been more selective with my names.

Not thinking about domain names or at least starting a website in the late 90s. I was on the Internet back then and I should have realized the potential a lot sooner. Again, just wasn't thinking.

 

[verbster]

Not reading the fine print for new extension releases for a landrush buy! I paid low $xxx only to find they allow "multiple applications" for the same domain, which, of course, results in an auction for the domain between all the applicants for that domain. The auction winner gets it, and everyone else who paid the price and thought "domain available" meant it was going to be reserved for them, forfeits their "registration" payment.

 

[Ms Domainer]

Not reading the fine print for new extension releases for a landrush buy! I paid low $xxx only to find they allow "multiple applications" for the same domain, which, of course, results in an auction for the domain between all the applicants for that domain. The auction winner gets it, and everyone else who paid the price and thought "domain available" meant it was going to be reserved for them, forfeits their "registration" payment.

*

This happened to me as well with .co.

I fought back, and challenged the registrar to show me where it stated in TOS that my $XXX wouldn't be returned to me.

They couldn't, so they refunded my fee, minus a $25 fee (which had been disclosed in TOS).

Sometimes you just have to make a little noise.

Never again, though, will I buy into a landrush deal.

*

 

[Erdy]

I bought a two word generic domain for $500 at an auction. Two years later somebody offered me $1300. I didn't accept that and kept the domain for a few more months.

Then I decided to sell because I needed to raise money for a project and I did the most stupidest thing I could. I pushed the domain to Sedo auction with a $60 bid and contacted that person who offered me $1300. I also contacted a few other potential buyers. The Sedo auction finished at $350. The buyer was the same person who originally offered me $1300.

 

[Makis.TV]

I made so many mistakes, No1 was buying .tv's that carried premium renewal prices of mid $$$$'s per year only to let them drop some yrs after.
No2 was spending at tdnam $1.5K for a domain that seem to have 90000 UV's per month. After domain got into my account I parked only to see 30 UV's per day and after 2 months almost none.
I can continue for ever... :D

 

[Sparhawke]

We have all made mistakes from time to time, but I have been lucky in that none of mine have been disastrous. About my biggest mistake is not understanding the value of domains when I first came here and getting words the wrong way around; something I quickly rectified

 

[Steven]

Paid $200 for a VCVC.com at peak of LLLL market.
Rejected offer of $500.

Couldn't find a buyer later when the LLLL hype died down.
Ended up dropping it.

 

[lll]

I bought a two word generic domain for $500 at an auction. Two years later somebody offered me $1300. I didn't accept that and kept the domain for a few more months.

Then I decided to sell because I needed to raise money for a project and I did the most stupidest thing I could. I pushed the domain to Sedo auction with a $60 bid and contacted that person who offered me $1300. I also contacted a few other potential buyers. The Sedo auction finished at $350. The buyer was the same person who originally offered me $1300.

FML?
:lol:

 

[JamesDavid]

Thanks for Sharing!

I am willing to bet MOST people's mistakes come in the form of regging .tv, .asia .me and other gTLDs that just end up sucking them dry...

I too have passed on offers that later I wish I would have taken...

 

[Blake]

I suppose my biggest mistake to date was investing in .me I purchased 30 names that cost me a pretty penny. Later on I realized that the investment was nothing more then artificial inflation and hype. I put a fire sale on them and was able to regain 2/3 of my investment and since have not jumped on any new offerings in extensions.

Great thread idea

 

[Rehydrated]

I have been buying names for a few years, but never really doing anything with them. I have kept a couple going, let a few drop, but I think my bigest mistake was buying a lot of .co domains only to realise, oh wait, you said mistake, buying .co domains names is genius pure genius!

Serious note - I have just refused a £300 offer on one of my .co's and I'm already thinking I should have took it.

 

[bilbo333]

Besides regging some really bad names, my biggest mistake was not finding the Godaddy discount code thread and paying full price for many of those bad names.

At least now I am buying bad names at a discount. Actually, my name picking has improved but I have a long way to go.

Great idea for a thread.

 

[afako]

Rejecting a $750 Offer from a London Company. I was greedy and asked for $1,200. Never heard back. I could not find any other buyer. Ultimately, I decided to go back and ask them. Got a offer of $250. I accepted. I pushed the domain first and never heard back.

I lost $750 and the Domain Name.

That really sucked.